Newey: “Lack of time” caused Jerez problems

Red Bull’s Adrian Newey has said that a “lack of time” was the main cause for the issues experienced at the opening winter test.

The new RB10 managed just 21 laps of the Jerez circuit at the opening four-day event of the season. Previously, the blame had been placed on the team’s engine supplier, Renault, but Newey admits that the car’s aggressive packaging is also responsible for the problems.

“What stopped us at Jerez, on our side as opposed to Renault’s side, was a problem where the bodywork local to the exhaust was catching fire,” he told AUTOSPORT.

“It’s a problem which hopefully we can get on top of ready for Bahrain.”

“It was really a lack of time [that caused the problem]. It was something that we could have proved out on the dyno if we had managed to get everything together earlier.

“But Renault have been up against it in terms of their use of the dyno, we have been up against it making the parts in time. So I think had we been a couple of weeks further ahead then that could all have been done in private on the dyno. But unfortunately it was done in public.”

He added: “Hands up on our side, that was a Red Bull problem. It was, you could argue, a result of aggressive packaging but we felt that we needed to take a few risks to try to get a good package that would minimise the aerodynamic damage of this very large cooling requirement.”

Image courtesy of Octane Photographic

Jack Leslie

Jack Leslie is a freelance motorsport and Formula 1 journalist. He has been part of the Richland F1 team since the very start and made his F1 paddock debut for the website at the 2014 Austrian Grand Prix. Jack also writes for Car Throttle, RumbleStripNews, Formula1Blog, PureF1 and F1 Plus, as well as running a popular blog.